Dog Training

These days, it seems like everyone needs to be trained. The employee you just hired is someone who badly needs to know the workings of your company. Your grandmother needs to undergo a particular kind of training to understand the process of using offers and coupons when she needs to shop online. And of course, the new dog you just welcomed to your family also needs to undergo some sort of training, too.

However, training your dog is not just a matter of whether you’re going to teach it to fetch or not. There are a lot of issues that you need to cover, including the ongoing debate on two kinds of training in particular: the Positive Reinforcement method or the Alpha Dog Method. Whatever you decide on for your dog, it’s best to decide based on how well you know your dog’s personality, as well as your own personality, of course. You have to be able to say for yourself that you do have what it takes to be a trainer.

The Positive Reinforcement Method

The positive reinforcement method is grounded on the principle that your dog responds best to rewards and not to punishments. When you think that you’re the kind of owner who’s more of a soft and tender person, then this method is probably the method that’s better for you.

Under this method, you can very simply ignore your dog when it is being naughty or when it has done something wrong. You don’t pay attention to it, you don’t give it any treats, you don’t pet it. By ignoring your dog, you’re basically giving it the message that its behavior doesn’t merit any special attention, something that dogs (especially the expressive ones) cannot stand.

On the other hand, under the same method, you invest in rewards whenever your dog does something right. When your dog does the ‘paw’ correctly, or when your dog fetches and returns the object to you, then you give it some treats, pet its head, and other gestures that mean heaven for your dog. With positive reinforcement, your dog will soon learn that only the good things that it does will be rewarded, while the naughty things will pass largely unnoticed.

Like how you would reward yourself with museum madame tussauds amsterdam tickets, for a job well done. That way, you’ll be doing better in whatever profession you’re in. Same way on how your dog feels when he’s getting rewards on whatever good he’s been doing.

The Alpha Dog Method

A second popular dog training method is the Alpha Dog method. Under this method, real punishments are being employed just to instill a sense of discipline and control on your dog. You can use these punishment methods for the times when your dog refuses to do what it is supposed to to, or when your dog does something that it’s not supposed to. With the Alpha Dog Method, the principle at work is that your dog will learn not mainly through rewards, as in positive reinforcement, but more through punishments.

There are popular products which you can use to impose punishments on your dog. First, some dog owners like to use the electric collars. These electric collars send a safe but startling current of electricity just to shake your dog up a bit whenever it does something naughty.

As a reminder, be careful on following methods listed in the other sites as it might contain hoax procedures. Many sites just buy traffic for website reviews. Not all have bad information, but you have to do your own research before jumping into doing it.

Whatever your preference, the choice will still be up to you and your personality, at the end of the day.

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Author | Daniel L. Graham

Daniel L. Graham is a certified dog trainer, and has been training and correcting dog behaviors for a few years now. He considers himself as a full-time father all of the doggo students at her Obedience School, and he derives most pleasure and purpose from doing what he loves best – training these adorable creatures.